


indeterminate beguile

by luna65



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Missing Scenes, Multi, s2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seduction is destructive.  Pleasure can be instructive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	indeterminate beguile

**Author's Note:**

> A meditation on various agendas and slippery slopes as seen in the S2 arc of "Su-Zakana," "Shiizakana" and "Naka-Choko"

He has come back to stop the world  
from turning itself inside out, and you love him, you do,  
so you won’t let him.  
Tell him that you will never know any better.  
Pretend to understand why that isn’t good enough.

Caitlyn Siehl, “Start Here”

 

_I can encourage my own destruction...and know it won't be forthcoming at your hands._

 

"I thought you wanted me to follow my impulses."

They were ensconced in Hannibal's study: cognac and firelight and music hovering lightly in the air, whispers of divine harmony. Though it was nearly dawn neither of them wanted to be alone.

"I want you to acknowledge your impulses and realize your potential."

"Why wouldn't you let me kill him?"

"Like a great many substances, anger is something which should be applied judiciously. Don't waste it on a spurious excuse."

"So I _should_ kill you?"

"You have reason, but do you have impetus?"

"If I did, you are literally standing in my way now."

"You came to me."

"Because you're the only one I _can_ go to. And you made sure of that."

"I want to help you, I'm sorry if you find that distressing."

"I find it disorienting."

Hannibal paused over his snifter with a sigh. "Your motivations are beyond me. But I would desire to know. This is how I show my fealty to your emotions, I acknowledge even those feelings which are allied against me. I accept them, but I want to lead you beyond them into the truth of yourself."

Will rolled the cognac upon his tongue, considering. He thought about the way Hannibal looked when he had pointed a gun at his head. There was fear in his expression, Will thought, but not at the prospect of dying. A fear that neither of them would ever know the full measure of the other. And now he wondered what kind of reckoning Hannibal had in mind.

 

Will flicked Hannibal's letter of recommendation onto Jack's desk with distaste.

"He set me up from the beginning, didn't he?"

"How long of a game is this? Are you telling me he pegged you as his patsy from the day he met you?" Jack exclaimed.

"As _something_ , at the very least. I suppose it's more likely that he wanted to see what would happen."

"And him with a front-row seat to whatever it was."

Will chuckled. "A little _too close_ , one might say."

 

Encountering Alana was awkward, but those eyes still attempted to peer into him. The dogs swarmed her, Alana smelled like _friend_ to them now.

"Did you bring Applesauce to play?" Will asked her, stepping out onto the porch.

Alana smiled slightly, nodding at the canine greetings occurring in the front yard. "She misses her buddies."

"I'm glad you weren't hurt, in the shooting."

"Thank you," she said quietly, voice slightly quavering. "It was a horrible thing."

"The traumatized are unpredictable," Will said, trying not to smile because there was something humorous to him in quoting Hannibal's psychiatrist to the woman who was having an affair with him.

"Yes. Even as repulsed as I am with Frederick's actions, I wouldn't have wished such a thing to happen."

"Speaking as one who was on the pointy end of his clumsy efforts to categorize me, I'm not sorry at all. Beverly's death was senseless. What happened to Frederick has a sort of justice about it."

"So you've redirected your anger, then?"

At such a loaded question the accused might have looked away from their interlocutor, but Will met Alana's gaze with unwavering intensity.

"My anger extends in all directions. Frederick is only one particular clay duck."

"At least you can't blame Hannibal for that."

Will chuckled ruefully. "Are you certain of that? I'm sure unorthodox methodology was a favorite topic at their weekly dinners."

"Are you accusing Hannibal of collusion?"

"I'm not leveling any accusations now. My therapist and I are invoking the privilege of our relationship."

"So you **do** have a relationship?"

"We've _always_ had a relationship; but it's evolved. Just as your relationship with him has."

"Yes, everything evolves."

"Evolve or die," Will murmured, stepping off the porch to wade in among the dogs. He wanted to say _don't come here to torture me with what I can't have, and what I fear I will lose_. But it was better to say nothing, for now. 

 

 _A fish chasing its tail_ , Will thought. Hannibal was not without his culinary puns.

But even if he was aware of Will's game, Hannibal still seemed to relish it, with a very real sort of appreciation. When Will praised his cooking, for example. A light in his eyes, to hear the compliment. And it was offered in truth - whatever he had been fed, it was always so easy to swallow. And his mouth watered for _more_.

 

He was allowed to wander the house now - he had gained that much trust. There would be nothing untoward to discover. It was akin to walking into a movie set, Will thought, all this sumptuous tasteful decor. Sets of Japanese _shunga_ prints framing his bed, with a deep green duvet providing jeweled contrast to the crisp white sheets. There were many such nods to Hannibal's aunt throughout, and Will wondered what items were reminders of Mischa, or his parents. He'd had a dream the other night that Hannibal had crawled out of that horse, not Clark Ingram. Will tended to think of Hannibal as fully-formed, without peer or influence. And he had to remind himself that he was supposed to be the one succumbing to influence and the appearance of the lure had to be _perfect_. It was what he did best...but deep in the forest something was screaming.

 

"Stay with me."

He made certain his voice contained a certain desperation, a certain...passion. To confess the fantasy which overlaid his actions, knowing Hannibal would be pleased to be the object of fantasy. To be at the center of Will's mind.

"Where else am I going to go?"

_Straight into your arms, waiting to catch me._

Hannibal treated his superficial wounds with the utmost care - the intimacy of his touch made Will feel dreamily disembodied. That boundary had been crossed several times now. The distance between them closing with every day, every act. But his reaction was not loathing but reassurance.

 

_Can you see you?_

 

"In love you take leave of your senses -"

Hannibal could invigorate all the senses with his discernment, it was instinctual, it was unassailable, it was honed like a tanto blade: deadly capable. For this methodology - sharing wine and philosophical musings - was his seduction. Taste is seductive when proffered by the tasteful. But Will could see him sliding down from his haughty eyrie, undone by his pleasure in Will. Swallowing the lure though he could spy the hook inside.

 

When Margot appeared at his door, Will immediately knew Hannibal had sent her. A test? Or a gift? And if the latter, to whom? His mind was full of contradictions and he wasn't surprised when he began to see other couplings during their own. The heat of other bodies, and the spectre of other agendas. Hannibal watching him make love to Alana, drawing nourishment, delectation, from the sight. But she turned away from him, at the end, and back to their mutual seducer, just as Margot left him as soon as she was satisfied.

 

"Better the devil you know."

_Better the devil you want to know better. Better the devil you want to know **you**._

 

Seduction can be destructive.

Pleasure can be instructive.

Will knowingly violates one of the oldest human taboos and Hannibal's smile has never been warmer, or brighter, like staring into an inferno.


End file.
